Can Momo break the Oak Hill Curse

Last Updated on Saturday, 02 January 2010 18:40 Written by Brad Allis Tuesday, 30 June 2009 00:50

Basketball Articles - Basketball General

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You’d never know it by looking, but Arizona basketball is cursed. Sure Sean Miller is on a hot streak in recruiting, Pac-10 teams are suffering losses and Nic Wise is back for his senior season. With all of these good things, it would hard to believe that the Wildcats suffer from a curse, but they do and only Momo Jones can break it.

 

Jones becomes the fourth player from Oak Hill to commit to Arizona out of high school and assuming he suits up for a game in November he will be the first Oak Hill player to actually play a game as a Wildcat freshman.

 

Only one other Oak Hill player has ever played for the Wildcats, but he was a transfer. Davis originally enrolled at Kansas and also attended Florida and Hutchison Community College before finishing his career as a Cat.

 

The other three were all great players, just not for the Wildcats. Two played in the NBA and another had a long pro and international career.

 

The last Oak Hill player to sign with Arizona was Brandon Jennings. The Cats started recruiting Jennings when he was still at Compton Dominguez but after his sophomore year he followed the lead of his longtime friend Marcus Williams and went to the Virginia Prep School. Many thought he would follow Williams to UConn but the point guard shocked many and pledged to USC.

 

The USC commitment was short lived and again UConn was thought to be his destination. Again, that was not the case and Jennings surprised many by picking Arizona days after an unofficial visit following the Cactus Classic.

 

Things seemed to be great. Jennings was courting other recruits and established himself as a legit top-10 player. He was on his way to being the highest ranked recruit in Wildcat history.

 

Things eventually unraveled. With word on the street being that Jennings’ SAT score was invalidated, rumors surfaced that he was thinking about bypassing college and playing professionally in Europe. Jennings re-took the SAT but did not wait for the score (or did not get a qualifying score) and bolted for Europe.

 

We’ll never know how good Jennings would have been at Arizona. While he did not have a great season in Italy, he was impressive enough to be the 10^th overall pick in the NBA Draft.

 

There is no doubt that Mike Bibby was the prize in the 1996 recruiting class, but Oak Hill’s Stephen Jackson was a close second. It was supposed to be the best class in school history.

 

The only problem was that Jackson failed to qualify. So while Bibby and the Wildcats were winning the national championship, Jackson was at a few different community colleges trying to get eligible.

 

Jackson never played for the Wildcats and eventually was a second round draft pick of the Suns. He was waived by Phoenix and bounced around before finally getting a chance in the NBA in 2000 with the Nets.

 

Now 10 years into his NBA career, Jackson averaged 15.4 ppg for his career and has averaged over 18 points four times. The past two years with Golden State he has averaged over 20 points a game.

 

Orlando Vega was another Oak Hill casualty. Again grades did him. He never played in the NBA bit played professionally in Puerto Rico, the CBA and in Spain. He also played for the Puerto Rican national team.

 

Although Davis was a standout player for the Cats his career did not end well. He was suspended for the final regular season game in his senior season and that was extended to the NCAA Tournament where the shorthanded Wildcats fell in the first round to Miami-Ohio.

 

 Now Jones cannot undo the past, but he sure can go a long way in fortifying the future.